A Delicious Train

My son requested a train cake for his birthday, and since we couldn't find any train cake toppers, my husband and I ended up sculpting our own. We made it a lot more difficult for ourselves due to the frosting we chose. Chocolate peanut butter frosting is very good, but we always have more trouble spreading it than any other frosting. Between the frosting and all the little pieces, the train was harder to put together than the ship from two years ago. We happened to have a box of animal crackers, so I thought a circus car would be fun.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

I recently discovered this delicious recipe and have made it several times. My family loves it more than the pumpkin muffins I usually make, however it is more caloric (not always a bad thing, but for me it is) and with the chocolate far messier on children.

I tweaked the muffins a little by reducing the sugar and oil and using whole wheat flour. So I am sure that if you followed the recipe exactly the muffins would be even tastier (but far more caloric if you care about that). When I have made these I ended up with twenty muffins rather than eighteen, but that is okay because they never last more than 24 hours anyway.

Applesauce Muffins

These are our family's new favorite muffin. I found the recipe somewhere and tweaked it a little by adding raisins and reducing the sugar and salt. The following is the "tweaked" version. The texture of the batter is a little funny, but they taste wonderful.

½ C. Oil

½ C. Applesauce (preferably unsweetened)

½ C. Sugar

1 ½ C. Whole wheat flour

½ t. Allspice

Scant ½ t. Salt

½ t. Baking soda

½ t. Baking powder

½ t. Cinnamon

½ t. Nutmeg

½C. Raisins

Combine all the dry ingredients thoroughly. Combine all the wet ingredients. Mix gently together and then add the raisins. Fill muffin tin. Cook at 400 for 15-20 minutes.

This is not the Platonic Form of Shortbread

When making shortbread one should never use this recipe:

1 Cup butter
2 C + 3T flour
1/2 C. sugar
1 egg

Yes, I know that shortbread does not have egg in it. Nevertheless, due to inattention, it found its way in. I don't think the cookies would have tasted any better without the egg though. They had a general lack of flavor which probably would have been remedied with a little salt and more sugar. Oh, well. Happy Boy loved them and gobbled about five of them down when I was distracted on the phone.

Just Checking In

I don't have anything in particular to post, but I wanted to let you know that I haven't totally forgotten about this blog.

In other news, since it was a pretty warm day today, I decided to make this recipe which I posted a while ago. My husband still liked it and I was even able to get my son to eat it. Also, I recently found this muffin recipe which looks both healthy and delicious. The only thing keeping me from making it is that it makes 18 muffins instead of 12. I don't know what I could do with the extra batter.

Happy Birthday!

On Sunday we celebrated my son's birthday. About a year ago I had seen on the Internet a ship cake and I thought I would try my hand at it. If you want to see it better you can click on the picture.

My husband made the cake and frosting and I "sculpted" and frosted it. All the guests were quite impressed. I thought it best not to mention that it didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. Next time I will probably do better just because I will have more experience.

The ship was a chocolate cake with chocolate peanut butter frosting. Since we were having so many guests I also made a spice cake with cream cheese frosting. (I'll give the recipe in a future post. It was excellent!) It ended up being one of the situations where one cake wasn't enough but two cakes were way too much. We don't mind that!

Mocha Brownies

I found this recipe on Recipe*zaar and decided to try it because it is something that I have done before (brownies) and something new (mocha flavored). It was rated extremely well, which was added incentive since sometimes one has to be cautious about unrated or low rated recipes.

These turned out to be very moist and while the mocha flavor was definitely there, it wasn't too strong either. Most people who tried them thought them to be very good.

Mocha Brownies with Coffee Frosting

½ cup shortening
½ cup butter
1 cup cocoa
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon hot water
4 teaspoons instant coffee
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup flour
½ teaspoon salt

Frosting
½ cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups confectioner's sugar
1 ½ tablespoons milk
2-3 teaspoons instant coffee

1. Preheat oven to 350°F Grease a 13x9 inch pan.
2. Melt shortening and butter over low heat or in the microwave.
3. Remove from heat and add cocoa, blend well.
4. Add sugar and mix well.
5. Dissolve instant coffee in hot water and mix into creamed mixture.
6. Add eggs one at a time, beat well, by hand, after each addition.
7. Stir in vanilla, flour, and salt.
8. DO NOT OVER BEAT!
9. Bake 25-30 minutes.
10. Cool completely before frosting.
11. For frosting, cream butter and vanilla.
12. Add powdered sugar and mix in well on medium speed.
13. Dissolve instant coffee in milk and add to mixture.
14. Beat on high until light and fluffy.